Patriotism is organised selfishness
The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), who wrote many works across different genres; novels, novellas, short stories, plays, essays, and religious/philosophical writings, believed that patriotism is essentially organized selfishness. While
The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), who wrote many works across different genres; novels, novellas, short stories, plays, essays, and religious/philosophical writings, believed that patriotism is essentially organized selfishness.
While we often view it as a noble love for one's country, he argued that it inherently requires us to believe our nation is superior to others.
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This “us versus them” mentality creates a psychological barrier that makes it easy for governments to convince citizens that killing people from another country is a duty rather than a crime.
In his view, as long as people hold onto an exclusive loyalty to their own flag, they provide the moral fuel that keeps the machinery of war running.
To destroy patriotism, according to Tolstoy, is to replace national loyalty with a universal brotherhood. He argued that if individuals stopped identifying as “Russian,” “French,” or “German” and instead identified simply as human beings, the justification for war would vanish.
If a soldier refuses to fight because he sees the enemy as a brother rather than a foreigner, the war cannot happen. Thus, destroying patriotism isn't about hating your home; it's about removing the artificial borders in the mind that allow war to exist.
